Week #6 - Wikis

Thing #15 - Learn About Wikis and Discover Some Innovative Ways That People Are Using Them

Please listen to this short online video presentation to explain Wikis (a youtube video created by Common Craft).

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide, the use and popularity of this tool is increasing.

Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:
Anyone (registered, or unregistered if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up with what has been changed and by whom.
Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content.
In most cases simple syntax structure is used.
As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Resources:
Use these resources to learn more about wikis:
Wikia - This is a directory of wikis. Explore some of the wikis included here and discover how you might use one in your everyday life.

For information on how to create a wiki, using Wikispaces, visit - http://www.wikispaces.com/

Discovery Exercise:
1. For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some wikis and blog about your findings.

Thing #16 - Add a Blog Entry About Wikis and (Optional) Start Your Own!

Consider different ways you could use a wiki and blog about your thoughts.

Try setting up a wiki that would be useful to you. It's easier than you might think! Go to http://www.wikispaces.com and try it! (For example, I have one that I use to keep all my recipes. I have another one that I use to at work to assign projects to student workers.)